Marist poll shows Obama driving midterm vote to GOP

posted at 12:01 pm on August 12, 2014 by Ed Morrissey

Midterm elections usually end up as referendums on the current President, and sixth-year midterms especially so. Will that be the case in November with Barack Obama? According to a new poll from Marist and McClatchy, yes — and Democrats will not like the outcome. By a ten-point spread, Obama incentivizes voters to go Republican more than Democratic:

President Barack Obama is dragging down his party and hurting the prospects of fellow Democrats as they head into midterm elections that will determine who controls Congress, according to a new McClatchy-Marist poll.

Obama is beset by problems at home and abroad. Just 40 percent of voters approve of the way he’s doing his job, tying his worst mark in three years and the second worst of his presidency.

Just 39 percent approve of the way he’s dealing with the economy and only 33 percent approve of how he’s dealing with foreign policy, the worst of his years in office.

By 42-32 percent, voters say their opinions of Obama make them more likely to vote this fall for a Republican than for a Democrat.

That’s actually twice the gap in the generic Congressional ballot, which stacks up 43/38 for Republicans — a very bad figure for Democrats. The GOP has gained 11 points in the gap since April, when Democrats led 48/42, which strongly suggests that the momentum has shifted in a big way as the general-election campaign season approaches. What’s more, it’s also pretty clear that no matter how poorly the GOP polls (only 22% approve of Republicans in Congress, as opposed to 32% for Democrats), the need to rebuke Barack Obama takes precedence for voters. Among independents, the GOP has a 14-point lead in the generic Congressional ballot, 40/26, and Obama makes independents likelier to vote for Republicans than Democrats by an almost 2:1 margin, 41/22.

So yes, this midterm will be all about Barack Obama, and not about income inequality or free contraception. Having an overall job approval rating of 40/52 is bad enough (worst since September 2011), but on issues that matter to voters, Obama may be doing worse than that topline figure suggests. His 39/58 on the economy is his worst showing since July 2013, and his 33/61 on foreign policy is Obama’s worst ever in the Marist series. He gets only a 30/55 on the Gaza war, and 32/51 on Ukraine. Even his personal favorability has plummeted; it’s now at 43/51, his worst showing in this series as well.

It’s a disaster for Democrats, and it doesn’t appear that it will get better any time soon. Obama might have mitigated the damage with a renewed sense of mission and engagement in the face of multiple crises, but instead he opted to go on vacation. Normally I’d push back against those who gripe about presidential vacations, but as I argue in my column today at The Week, this time critics have a point:

Three years ago, he proudly declared that he had kept his promise to get all troops out of the country, and two years ago campaigned on the fact that Mitt Romney would have kept U.S. troops there had he been president. In January of this year, Obama infamously dismissed ISIS as “a jayvee team” to al Qaeda, and shrugged them off as “jihadists who are engaged in various local power struggles and disputes.”

Meanwhile, two weeks ago, the head of the Defense Intelligence Agency told an audience that the U.S. is less safe than it was “several years ago,” and that rather than being on the run, the al Qaeda ideology “sadly feels like it’s exponentially grown” during that time.

On Saturday, with Marine One in the background, standing by to whisk him away to Martha’s Vineyard, Obama announced that he had ordered the U.S. military to conduct airstrikes on ISIS to prevent a potential genocide. He then proceeded to claim that removing all troops from Iraq wasn’t his decision, but was a situation forced on him by Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki.

Needless to say, the dramatic cognitive disconnects in Obama’s narrative don’t do much to maintain even the current low confidence in his leadership, let alone repair the damage. While Obama can certainly run the American response from his vacation retreat to the genocide unfolding in real time, his insistence on doing so reinforces the conclusion that the president isn’t taking the ISIS threat seriously.

Most Americans would expect that the sudden epiphany about the genocidal threat posed by ISIS would have a president working overtime. This time, at least, the need to boost confidence in the president’s leadership should have outweighed his legitimate need for some downtime outside the Beltway bubble.

Americans are less and less impressed with Obama, and going absent in August isn’t likely to make them feel any better about him as Commander in Chief, either.

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I hope never again will the voters elect a Kenyan non-citizen muslim as president

txdoc on August 12, 2014 at 12:05 PM

Communists don’t believe in God or Allah. Stop calling him a Muslim already. It’s just stupid at this point. Yes, he was raised among them in Indonesia, but his heart will forever be fond of what was instilled in him by Frank.

So, we are back to the usual excuse for Leftist war, humanitarian relief. If that’s going to be our policy we better increase military spending now as we will be quite busy. Especially since we don’t fight wars to win anymore, but just bomb people enough to achieve some kind of stalemate that is ‘fair’, with equal losses on both sides.

The angle that everyone is missing here is that If Barack Obama says that leaving Iraq was not his idea then he is telling us his many statements and promises to get us out of Iraq were deliberate lies.

I’m concerned that divisions in the GOP may help Kay Hagan keep her seat in NC. There’s currently a Libertarian in the race who is pulling about 8%, most of it from Republican Thom Tillis. Most polls right now show Hagan with a slight lead.

Conservatives in NC wanted Dr. Brannon, and it looks like many are going for the Libertarian instead of Karl Rove, Chamber of Commerce-backed Thom Tillis.

Let me be clear. I told the Iraqis that they could keep our US troops in their country if wanted to at about the same time I told Americans they can keep their health care plans if they wanted to. If you dare to say not so then I must call BS.

Quite the opposite. Had Obama not acted stupidly on the border by creating this wave surge of illegal alien “children” the GOP’s own blundering and blatant ATTACKS against the conservative base would have kept him the Senate and possibly even given him the house back.

The GOP is going to win the Senate and keep the House, then promptly LOSE BOTH in 2016 because they will start “reaching across the aisle” on Amnesty first thing, and our Presidential nominee will be another “electable moderate” from the Establishment that will lose in a LANDSLIDE.

He’s been successful and that’s the problem. Honestly I can’t think of anything that he has been successful at that was beneficial to the US as a whole.

Buckshots on August 12, 2014 at 1:13 PM

I would say the only positive about Obama is that because he is so lazy and incompetent, that as bad as things are, had he been an industrious communist who showed up to work and put in 40+ a week, we’d be in even WORSE shape!

If the GOP weren’t desperately trying to destroy challenges from actual conservatives, this election could be one of the hugest upsets in recent memory.

As it is, we’ll be lucky if the Democrats lose control of the Senate. And the Republicans actually elected to the Senate will be by and large squishes who will have no interest in correcting Obama’s failures.

It’s looking more and more like our only real hope is to get enough conservatives in the House that the Senate will reluctantly pass conservative bills sent to them from the House.

It’s gotta so bad, even the dyed in the wool liberals here in liberal-looney western WA are admitting they made a mistake…. but NONE of them are going to vote for an evil, business-loving Republican… nor an Independent who has owned a business or been in a ‘corporation’.

As per the PPP survey, even with the Libertarian candidate, McConnell leads by 4. As is the case with just about every election, the Libertarian candidate does his/her best early in the polling, but does very little damage once people actually realize that their vote matters.

If McConnell ends up winning, which I fully expect him to, I hope I see you back here and admit that I was right.

I had no idea that PPP, which once partnered with Daily Kos, was aligned with the GOP establishment. Good to know.

Read the comments drone. Mississippi was the straw that broke corrupt Mitch’s back.

Good times!

Jayrae on August 12, 2014 at 2:42 PM

Also, I have no problem engaging you, but there’s no need to resort to name-calling. It’s not like I’m refusing to call you names because of a lack of names to call you. There are plenty of names to describe you, but I rather engage in a civil and adult discussion.

Most Americans would expect that the sudden epiphany about the genocidal threat posed by ISIS would have a president working overtime. This time, at least, the need to boost confidence in the president’s leadership should have outweighed his legitimate need for some downtime outside the Beltway bubble.

Does anyone think Obama even has a concept of full time work, never mind this thing called “overtime?”